


You’re So Self-Satisfied

by CaptainLeBubbles



Series: Ineffable Bureaucracy to the tune of Set It Off [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Booty Calls, Bureaucracy As Foreplay, Fluff and Crack, Light Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 13:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20135977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: Every month, Beelzebub and Gabriel meet up for a performance review, to go over all of the things they do together that the other doesn’t like. It’s the best way to become better partners, after all.





	You’re So Self-Satisfied

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a jokey thing about Gabe and Beelz using bureaucracy as foreplay but then they went and made it emotional so.
> 
> Sometimes I feel like I write Gabriel too sweet for these things but I’m so weak for this dynamic I’ve built for them.
> 
> Technically takes place in the same continuity as the wedding fic and the hookup oneshot, but neither are really necessary reading. You know, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

As a demon, Beelzebub had a specific image to maintain. The sort of image where she didn’t get all hot and bothered over the thought of a certain Archangel flushed and wanting under her hands while she took him apart bit by bit. The sort where just the thought of him gasping for her didn’t leave her tugging uncomfortably at her collar, and she certainly didn’t make an effort in the privacy of her office just so she could bring herself off to a memory of his cries.

No, a prince of hell couldn’t be seen to do any of these things.

(Of course, she could easily spin it so that her demons thought she was just playing some sort of sadistic game, using the Archangel for her own pleasure, pulling his strings- so to speak- but something about that left a bad taste in her mouth. She wasn’t ready to admit it, not even in her own thoughts, but that wasn’t what any of this was about.)

“Just call him already,” Dagon snapped, the fifth time she wandered into the archive to bother the closest thing she had to a friend Down Here.

Beelzebub snapped her mouth closed around a reprimand. How had Dagon known about them at all, let alone that she was trying to distract herself from how much she wanted to see him right now?

“You’re not subtle,” Dagon said, by way of explanation. “And who do you think keeps track of incoming and outcoming calls Down Here? It’s certainly not Hastur, that idiot barely knows how to file his own reports, let alone keep track of everyone else’s. Just go call the heavenly dickhead, I know you want to- and get out of my hair!”

It was a fair point. Beelzebub turned around and walked out.

-/-

In her office, Beelzebub sat back at her desk and dialed Gabriel’s number on her cordless- her phone was rather old-fashioned, and Gabriel kept pestering her about getting a proper one, but she liked this one, and anyway, this one did the job just fine, so what did it matter?

Gabriel’s number rang a few times without answer, before clicking over to an automated message- recorded in his own voice.

_Hello_, the message said. _Your call is very important to us Up Here, so please wait on the line until your party can be reached._

“Dickhead,” she muttered, leaning her chair back and folding her arms, cradling the phone between head and shoulder. For a long time there was only the sound of creaking as her worn out desk chair rocked back and forth, and a canned recording of ‘Favorite Things’ that she supposed was meant to be pleasant to listen to for whoever had been put on hold.

After about twenty minutes of this, she dialed again and shifted the phone to the other ear, pouting when she was once more shunted to hold. “Fuck,” she growled, brushing a hand across the front of her trousers. Why hadn’t she waited till they were together to put her effort on? This waiting, this runaround- he must know it was her calling, why was he leaving her on hold?

This time she waited nearly half an hour before trying again, sure that this time he’d answer-

_Hello. Your call is very important to us-_

Angry buzzing filled the office as she rose her shoulder enough to keep the phone in place, and her other hand slipped down to unbutton her trousers.

“Fucker.”

He must know what he was doing.

-/-

“Beez!” Gabriel said, picking up the phone while Beelzebub was miracling away the mess she’d made of herself.

She huffed into the phone, making sure he knew how annoyed she was at his runaround. “About time you picked up, wank-wingz. It’z time for your monthly performanze review, we need to meet up zomewhere.”

“Oh,” and she hated how smug he sounded on the other end. “That time already, is it? Where would you like to meet?”

“My flat will do. You know the address- how soon can you get away?”

“As soon as you like. Meet in an hour?”

“That’z fine. Zee you then.”

-/-

It would take him nearly another hour to get to her, Beelzebub knew. She stood in the little flat she kept for the sake of earthly business- and Gabriel- and tried to think what she had in mind for this meeting.

A lazy wave of her hand brought a folder to the desk set up in the corner- this was a performance review, after all. Other than that, she had a bottle of whiskey and a couple shot glasses, and the duvet was pattered from some terrible image she’d found on the internet, a four-panel comic page that she didn’t understand but that Crowley had at one time assured her was enough to drive plenty of people who understood it to rage.

That should do. Wouldn’t want to look like she’d put any effort into it.

It took nearly an hour before there was a knock on the door and it opened to admit Gabriel, flushed to the neck, tie loose and sweat beading on his forehead. Judging by the tell-tale tenting on his trousers, he’d enjoyed her own little runaround, or, well, probably enjoyed wasn’t the right word, but it was having the desired effect, so she’d chalk it up to a win.

“Gabriel,” she said. “Zzzit-“ She broke off, and took a long, deep breath, and tried again. _“Sit _down, please.”

“Since when does this building have a receptionist?” he asked, taking the indicated seat. “She wouldn’t let me up until my number was called.”

“She’s a real stickler for _organizzation_,” she said, letting her voice drop to a purr on the last word. A few more beads of sweat sprang into place on his temples. She smirked at him. “There’z a right way to do things, after all…”

“Right. Uhm.” He cleared his throat. Loosened his tie a bit more. “So. Performance review?”

“Right.” She reached over to pick up her folder, at the same time he set his own onto the desk. “Let’z begin.”

-/-

“Third point. Last time we were together you said, and I’m quoting, ‘Oh yeah, talk organization to me, baby’.” She raised her eyes at him, and gave a disdainful sniff while he at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “It’z nice that you like it when I talk organizzzation, but I don’t like being called ‘baby’. I am not a baby.”

“That’s fair, I was just trying it out. Is it just that word, or are petnames of any kind off the table?”

“Hmm.” She made a show of consulting her notes. “You have, in the pa-_st_, called me ‘dear’, ‘my love’, ‘beauty’, ‘lovely’, ‘darling’, ‘pet’, and ‘Beez’.”

“Yes.”

She frowned. Shifted uncomfortably. Seeing the names all together made her- well, she felt weird.

“…I like Beez,” she mumbled, turning the page hastily.

-/-

“Sixth point,” Gabriel said, flipping to the next page in his folder. “Your dirty talk tends to involve a lot of calling me a bad angel.”

“I’m pretty sure nothing we do is particularly _angelic,”_ she said, drawing the word out with an attempt at a smoulder. “If it is, heaven has a changed quite a bit since I was there.”

“To be fair, it hadn’t been invented last time you were there. In fact the Almighty doesn’t mind if we, you know, make an effort, as long as we don’t get involved with humans.”

“Your point?”

He flushed, and looked down at his notes. He’d manifested a pair of reading glasses at some point; they were completely unnecessary, except that she found them infuriatingly irresistible, and therefore were entirely necessary.

“I’m not a bad angel,” he said.

“Ohhh, you’re _very bad_,” she purred, and made a note on her file. “But noted.”

-/-

“Eleventh point,” she said. “You get very clingy after we’re done.”

“I like holding you,” he replied, completely unashamed. “Especially after.”

“Why?”

“Contact? It’s nice. You’re warm. And… small. You-“ He made a vague circling motion with his arms, miming a hug. “You fit.”

“I… fit?”

“Here.” He tapped the middle of his chest. “You fit here. I like that.”

She looked down at her own file, cheeks pink. “I don’t.”

He made a mark on his folder. “Noted.”

-/-

“Point fifteen,” he said. “I’ve noticed you have a tendency to start buzzing when you’re getting really caught up, but then you stop.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “Ye-_es_…”

“I don’t like that, I feel like you’re holding out on me.” He raised his head to meet her gaze. “You can let go here, Beez. It’s okay. With me- here- it’s okay-“

This whole thing- the performance review- was just a game, really. Oh, not a roleplay, they were being sincere, and it was something they both enjoyed, for their own reasons, but the act of the review was a game. See who could break first. Which of them would get so overwhelmed they’d throw the game aside and initiate the contact they’d both come here for.

This time, it was Beelzebub who broke, clearing the space where her desk had been until just a heartbeat ago to crush her mouth against his, hands almost tender on either side of his jaw while she half-dragged him up, up from the chair in a way that could not possibly be comfortable for a corporation as tall as his.

“You win,” she buzzed against his mouth. “I ffforfeit. Now take me to bed you zzzztupid, zzzztupid angel.”

-/-

She sprawled on her front, hugging the pillow against her while he traced patterns onto her back with feather-light touches. She could just barely make out that he was making shapes against her skin, letters, and if she strained she could follow some of them- but she knew, in a part of her that she tried to keep buried, that she wasn’t ready to acknowledge, exactly what he was spelling out, in every language that existed on the earth by the feel of it, and so didn’t try to work them out. He was just making shapes. That was it.

A shiver rippled across her skin, and she turned to him with a sleepy look. Sleepy and sated, she could just about stand the soft way he was watching her.

“Point one- You always miracle my suit onto a hanger,” he murmured. “Point two- you’re never stingy about your effort. Point three…”

“What are you zzaying?” she mumbled.

“It’s called positive reinforcement. I’m giving you a bulleted list of things you do that I like.”

“We don’t have pozzitive reinforzzement Down There.”

“I know. It’s new Up There, too. Point three-“

“Zzhut up. I’m trying to zzleep.”

He leaned over to press a soft kiss to her temple. “All right. Sleep well.”

**Author's Note:**

> County schools go back today and so hopefully business will slow down a bit at work and I can finally rest. In the meantime, hit me up on Tumblr @grifalinas!


End file.
